University of Twente Student Theses

Spectral Shaping for Spectroscopy and Imaging

This thesis describes developments that have been made on two applications of spectral shaping for imaging and spectroscopic analysis. The first application is based on coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS). CARS provides label free chemical selectivity based on a compound‟s vibrational resonances, it is often used as a chemically selective imaging tool. The CARS signal is, through the anti-Stokes shift, free from one photon fluorescence background. In our system CARS is used for the detection of compounds with vibrational resonances in the fingerprint region 2800 cm-1 to 3200 cm-1. By using spectral shaping we are able to remove non-resonant background from our signal and obtain an enhanced contrast for specific compounds